1. Field of the Invention
This invention lies in the field of earth-moving equipment. More particularly, it concerns an improvement in a front-end loading bucket apparatus mounted on and operated from a suitable vehicle.
Still more particularly, it concerns a type of gathering blade that can be moved longitudinally in the direction of the axis of the vehicle, and so can be used to gather material in front of the bucket and draw it backward into the bucket.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the prior art there are a number of systems utilizing combinations of a loader bucket, and an articulated gathering cover, that is mounted for rotation on the top of the bucket. To a limited extent these covers can be moved in a way to gather material from in front of a bucket and to load it into a bucket. However, none of the art has shown the possibility of providing a gathering blade that is independently movable with respect to the vehicle, rather than movable with respect to the bucket, and thus such a blade is much more capable of moving material in the vicinity of the bucket than is possible when the gathering cover is directly attached to the bucket itself.